


And the Stars Do Sing

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Episode Tag, Episode: s03e10-e11 The Return, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-11 23:57:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1179473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is worse than the Wraith. Worse than discovering a war long lost, her people long vanished to a place she has never been able to follow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And the Stars Do Sing

The halls twist into shadows, arches awash in darkness that never lifts unless forced. It’s different, being on the surface. Windows should be open, letting in golden sunlight instead of the murky green depths that all of them are used to.

The windows never open. Not for all the demands, all the repairs, all the frantic, furtive cajoling. They just never open.

_We need food_ , Adir says. He’s always been a gruff, cold individual, bitter that his very distance is what prevents him from joining his family in ascension. _I don’t know how they were living._

_We must make do,_ is what she tells him, because it is the simple truth. There is food aplenty on the abandoned farms on the mainland, but they cannot retrieve it. None will unbend enough to do something as simple as pick fruit from a vine, mill wheat for bread. It’s humiliating, that this once proud race is dependent on such primitive, tasteless means, but the processes they have depended on for centuries lay still and silent.

_We need food,_ Adir demands again, but this time it is almost plaintive. As plaintive as one such as he can act, anyway. He knows as well as she that this most recent harvest, full of torn skin and bruised knuckles and bitter, frustrated dismay, will be their last.

No one has been able to make the gateships fly. And now their great ship, the one that has carried them across unknowing millennia, stays dark and motionless, dead under their coaxing touch.

It’s not hard to understand what has happened. Helia knows, and the others begin to guess as days slip into more grey, empty days.

_Are you guys okay?_ It is the general who speaks to them with such familiarity. Contempt, truly, although he is master enough not to be blatant in his dismissal. He understands. It is always bright where he stands, sunshine a gilded puddle at his feet, metal near to glowing under his regard. _You all look a little... lost._

The other says nothing at all, no matter how many words he uses to do it. He does not understand, but then, he does not feel as the general does. Helia smiles at that one, enjoying the familiar dance. It gives her a small measure of joy where there is so little to be found.

The general thinks her cruel for it. He does not say, but his eyes are too expressive for his own good.

Well. _Her_ own good.

_I do not understand,_ she whispers, late at night when silence sits over them, watchful and unmoving, a statue’s unwavering regard. There should be life where she touches, a warmth that none but her people have ever been able to imbue into their creations.  
There is none. Her skin registers only the deep and painful cold where life can never be.

_We are your proper caretakers. We are who you have waited for._

But that, if it has ever been, is true no longer.

She finds the general in the command center, staring at the gate. _When we first heard about you guys, Colonel Sheppard mentioned something about you locking down the city. McKay had a lot more to say about it, whatever it was. Even mentioned you waving your hand and having the city jump like a puppy – he just doesn’t have Carter’s way of explaining things, you know? But I did get that now that you guys were back, we couldn’t do pretty much anything. Nothing would respond._

He lets his hand hover, trembling faintly from age and experience, over the panel controlling gate activity. It blossoms into light, pale and perfect, reaching up towards him with a sense of rightness Helia has not felt since the gate closed on the heels of the last expedition member, the one with dark hair and darker, haunted, accusing eyes.

_I’m not supposed to be able to do that,_ the general says. _Am I?_

She does not confirm his guess. He sees all he needs on her face, her beloved calm, taught upon birth as a life-long defense against the vagaries of the universe, deserting her when she needs it most.

This is worse than the Wraith. Worse than discovering a war long lost, her people long vanished to a place she has never been able to follow. This is a betrayal of the most fundamental, as if her very skin turned against her, her bones suddenly a distant and disapproving enemy, blood poison in her veins.

Worse still, she cannot even feel angry about it.

_You should return to your people._

_So you can turn this place into a tomb?_

She is glad the other is not here. He would argue about worth, about cost and need and effectiveness, merchant’s eyes shining through those thin, clear lenses. He would try to convince her that all was not yet lost.

_That will not happen unless you let it,_ she tells him and leads him towards sensors he has made no effort to read. Those work, at least, although Helia is not fool enough to think the warning they show is for her. _Here. And here._

He studies the screen, flickering eyes seeing more than just the familiar shape and energy output. _Moving pretty fast._

_I know._

He is smart, this general, as familiar to her has her own brother, irreverent no matter how their parents despaired. Perhaps that is why she sees best, clearest of all who still remain. _You know?_ The emphasis is subtle, but Alterans built their civilizations on subtlety, the only balance against structures that rivaled the stars.

She says nothing. Like the city that cannot abide their presence, she lets herself shut down, growing cold, distant, fading into the background that is all that’s left to her. Their flawed creations will come. They will kill all that remain, because she, at least, can see that they have neither the power nor the wherewithal to fight. No will.

This does not dismay her.

_I can’t let you do this,_ the general tells her. _This city – it’s too valuable._

She only smiles. It is not the value that he worries over, for all he barely allows himself to see the differences. He will do as he must, protecting his people the way she will not be able to protect hers, and when the time comes she know he will make the right decision. The one that will allow her city to be as it wishes; to be with _whom_ it wishes.

She and the other Alterans will be long gone by the time the forces from Earth arrive. It may be big, or small – she cannot read that far into what will be to determine that. Either way, she knows the dark man with his glittering, angry eyes will be among those who come back, the proud woman who would not bend even as all she knew was being crushed, the loud one who loving repaired, eagerly improved what Helia and the rest of her brethren were no longer allowed to touch.

These and others would come back. And Atlantis would breathe again, content that her chosen were returned to her.


End file.
